Extreme weather has triggered over $3 billion in insurance payouts to California farmers since 2001

A new report found that over the last two decades, losses tied to extreme weather triggered over $3 billion in crop insurance payouts to California farmers.

Authors of the report, which was published by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, analyzed payments made to farmers from the Federal Crop Insurance Program between 2001 and 2022. The program, funded in large part by taxpayer money, pays farmers when their crop yields decline in an effort to keep the agricultural sector economically stable. 

In the report, authors identified the top five weather-related causes of crop loss leading to payouts nationally: Heat, excess moisture, drought, hail and freeze. Payouts in each of these categories more than doubled nationally since 2001.  

“Together, these five weather conditions caused over $118 billion of crop insurance payments nationally between 2001 and 2022,” said Anne Schechinger, an agricultural economist who led the report.    

Schechinger said California farmers are top in the country when it comes to losing crops due to both heat and freeze. She said payouts for crops lost due to heat alone amounted to over $1.3 billion in California between 2001 and 2022. The majority of these impacts were felt in Central Valley counties including Kern, Tulare and Fresno.

“A lot of us think about drought when we think about agriculture in California,” Schechinger said. “But heat’s actually the really large cause of the crop insurance payments.” 

She said climate change is largely to blame for the steady increase in costs. 

Schechinger cited pistachios grown in California as one example. According to the report, pistachio farmers in California received the most payments due to heat, followed by prune and grape farmers. 

“There are certain cold temps that pistachios need to really thrive and we're seeing warming temps in the winter at a bad time,” she said.  

Schechinger said there’s a need to reform the crop insurance program. She recommends more money be spent helping farmers adapt to a changing climate rather than financially recovering lost crops. 

“It's really important to reform the program to help farmers adapt to climate change, you know, doing things that can help improve their resilience to this extreme weather,” she said.  

The report points to the 2023 Farm Bill, a package of legislation that is renewed every five years and covers the crop insurance program, as one opportunity for lawmakers to reform the program and boost farmers’ climate resilience.